Monday 30 December 2013

JQ Fitness: A Year In Review

Take a peek back with us as we remember all of the amazing things that we've been up to this year!

Can you believe that 2013 is coming to a close? This year has been filled with some great memories and the opportunity to meet some amazing new faces and continue doing what we LUV! Thank you for making our job the best job out there!

So without further ado we present to you our YEAR IN REVIEW!


2nd Annual iluvthis Bootcamp BE[CAUSE] - A Burpee Can Make a Difference




On April 13 2013, we hosted our 2nd Annual iluvthis Bootcamp BE[CAUSE] charity event to raise money for Free-Theman Oakville-based charity committed to stopping and helping victims of human trafficking right here at home in the GTA and the Golden Horseshoe. 

A challenging team circuit kicked off the morning with tonnes of sweat and grunting but everyone finished with a smile. This is a family event, so a mini-bootcamp class for kids was next on deck (we start ‘em doing burpees young here at JQ!). To finish off our morning, Johanna and our trainers got over 130 participants pumped up with a high-energy kickboxing session and then had so much fun with our large bootcamp class.  

With your support and participation, we were able to raise more than $10,000 to fight again human trafficking.

There were free massages for the participants, an awesome chat from Dr. Jason Lee of Innermedica and some delicious goodies baked by Deb over at Gourmet Mom – yum! We had such a great time. If you were there with us THANK YOU for supporting Free-Them.  If you weren’t there, don’t worry one little bit because we’ve got another event coming up in February so you can get in on the fun as well J

Our event was featured in an article in the Invidiata The Collection magazine with the photography of Simon Remark from Ecstatic Photography
  
 



New Hamilton & Brampton Bootcamp locations!

This summer marked the launch of our Hamilton & Brampton locations! We've been so blessed in our ability to expand into over 15 locations across the GTA – we LUV bringing fitness and our community as close to you as possible and are so excited to open up new locations so that you can reap the benefits of our bootcamps!

We’ve been hearing some great feedback from these sites and are looking forward to seeing how they grow to be a bigger part of the iluvthis Bootcamp family.

Mississauga Waterfront Festival

We celebrated this year's Mississauga Waterfront Festival in Port Credit with kids fitness demonstrations and a fun booth!  If you dropped by our booth, we held an awesome bootcamp challenge where a few brave souls slammed that medicine ball into the ground and squatted-and-pressed that kettlebell as many times as they could in 30 seconds – we had a male and female winner who received a free 5 week bootcamp session.


Valiant efforts were taken by the men on stilts - (unfortunately they didn’t win the challenge…)

Locke St Festival

At the trendy Locke St Festival in Hamilton, our trainers Tanya and Emily along with Melissa braved the rain in the morning to hangout with our Hamilton crowd. Our tent didn’t fare as well in the rain as we did though…


Jeff and Johanna arrived in the afternoon to a clearing sky! Once again, our booth became the centre of attention as we challenged people with our kettlebells and medicine balls. Locke St. is such a unique street. So much so, we decided to move our Hamilton site right onto Locke St. at Melrose United Church! 


Half Marathon Clinic & 10th Annual Nike Women's Half Marathon

Summer is the time that we invite all our running clients and those that want to be runners to join us to start with a 5km run and progress to a 21.1km Half Marathon over 16 weeks of training. 

As we have done over the past several years, we capped the clinic off with a trip to San Francisco to run the 10th Annual Nike Women's Half Marathon with 30,000 other women and a few good men! Our trainer Amanda took the reins this year and guided everyone to a successful half marathon finish! We rocked the race...


(not to mention the FAB tutu’s that we all modeled!) did you really expect anything less?

We luved crossing the finish line to claim our Tiffany’s finished necklaces handed to us by handsome firemen in tuxedo’s!

Celebration of our 5 Year Fat Fighting Bootcamp Anniversary!

In June 2008, we started 2 bootcamp classes in Mississauga. We gave it our all, packing those 8 weeks with great people and great workouts. Well, we haven't looked back! Little did we know that iluvthis Bootcamp would evolve into a top notch fat loss and strength and conditioning program that would change people's lives and inspire health in thousands! Five years later, we have a team of 9 caring and inspiring trainers that are dedicated to coaching our community of participants across 15 locations in Brampton, Burlington, Etobicoke, Hamilton, Milton, Mississauga and Oakville. 

To celebrate our 5 years, we gave away some sweet swag bags – with water bottles, pens and our special edition #BurpeesForBreakfast t-shirts this fall! What an amazing 5 years it’s been…


I mean who doesn’t LUV free swag…

Tabata, Kickboxing and Core Small Group Fitness Classes

This fall marked the launch of our Small Group Fitness classes in Burlington, Oakville and Mississauga. We launched with 3 classes to choose from: Fat Blasting Interval Training Tabatas, High Energy Cardio Kickboxing and a Core Ripping Stability Ball class! All of which continue in the new year with NEW LOCATIONS ADDED.



4th Annual Freedom Walk for Free Them

In September we participated in the 4th annual FREEDOM WALK for Free-Them where we were honoured with the iStand Award, thanking us for our efforts to help abolish modern day slavery by raising $21,000 over the last 2 years. We then warmed up the walkers and off we went... to make a difference!


Girl's Night You - Beautiful You

In November, we hosted our first Beautiful You event, where Johanna talked about how the media affects how women perceive themselves and their value. It was an amazing ladies night and one that we will absolutely do again! Its such a privilege to remind the amazing ladies in our lives how special and truly beautiful they are!




During this event we also held a balloon raffle to raise money for Free-Them and ate delish goodies baked once again by Deb at Gourmet Mom! It was so amazing to see so many of you out for this.  Johanna’s talk was honest, informative and refreshing and we hope that you were inspired to embrace your inner beauty and value – we know we were!



It’s really been an amazing year and we're so blessed to have been able to share it with you! We hope you’ll be able to join us in 2014 as we keep pursuing our health and fitness goals and hopefully inspire you to do the same…

So from our JQ Fitness family to yours… MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HAPPY NEW YEAR!


xx


Monday 16 December 2013

Holiday Survival Guide: Exercise Edition


I’m sure you’re aware if you’ve set foot into a mall at any point in the last few weeks that the Christmas season is fully upon us. It’s a crazy time of year and for many of us the only exercise we find time to fit in is fighting off the other shoppers to snag that last minute present, boxing matches in the parking lot for that coveted parking spot, or running after your kids through Toys-R-Us (Tis' the Season!!)…

That said, how do we make time in our crazy lives this holiday to fit in the physical activity that our body is craving and not fall off the wagon when January rolls around – because if any of you are like me, or rather what I used to be like December was a total write off and by the time January rolled around well…..



you get the picture...

So with all of this in mind we’ve come up with some HOLIDAY DO’s for exercising this holiday season!

DO know your schedule and time availability, and don’t try to plan something that will be a burden on your schedule! Shorter and more intense bursts of activity like sprints, tabata or some of our punch-clock-workouts (Check ‘em out) will do the trick and help you stay limber and ready for action when the new year rolls around!

DO remember that if you skip out on your workouts all holiday season that getting back into the daily grind is going to totally SUCK when January rolls around.  With this is mind make sure you tackle a workout and keep your mind in the game!

DO bring your family on board! Your kids might be home from school soon and this is a great opportunity to get the whole family on board for some great family fun! Go rock climbing (inside of course!), go on a family walk with the dog, build a snowman and run around your yard. Take advantage of this opportunity to be with family and not just roasting chestnuts on the open fire.

DO skip the online shopping.  With the ease and convenience of shopping online these days there is often no reason to head out and tackle the mall parking lots and holiday shoppers. Head out to the mall and walk around a little bit, it will do your body good. Just try not to get too frustrated at those crazy mall people – patience and grace are the name of the game!

DO remember that your best exercise decision may actually be not stuffing that other holiday treat into your tummy… and check out our other HOLIDAY DO list for surviving the holiday parties and temptations along the way…

Ultimately the best thing that you can do for yourself is to maintain you normal schedule, of eating, exercise and sleep and with a few treats along the way you’ll be all set for a successful holiday season!


………


Just in case you don’t have enough holiday cheer in your life – try out this little holiday circuit workout we’ve put together for you!

15 Dumbbell Goblet Squats (No Dumbbell? Make it 30!)
15 Single-Arm Dumbbell Rows/Side
15 Burpees
12 Dumbbell Reverse Lunge/Leg (No Dumbbell? Make it 24!)
As Many Pushups As Possible (Leave 1-2 in the tank, don't go to fatigue)
20 Bicycle Crunches/Side

REST NO MORE THAN 60sec BEFORE YOU GO AT IT AGAIN!


COMPLETE 4X